"You've gotten a lot invented in what seems like very little time."

"We were very motivated!"

"Nobody else has replicated the ship-halting trick either. We've got tractor beams but those aren't quite the same."

"I think we'd be very interested in some kind of scientific exchange programs, though I don't know that it would extend to ship weapon systems."

"I'd imagine there'd be all kinds of civilian applications for it."

"That'd be exciting."

"Oh, yes. Not my field, but we've got some very talented people on that sort of thing, I can let 'em know as soon as you know on what terms you'd like to collaborate."

"I will set up a meeting with everyone who should have input on that, and I'm sure we can come up with something. Is the Federation still pursuing the arrest of Isabella T'Mir?"

"Well. We don't call it the Prime Directive because it's a traffic regulation." He smiles.

"Of course."

"I understand you've got a lot of sympathy for what she was up to. It's definitely got a commendable motive behind it. But yes, the Federation is still pursuing the arrest for the planets she robbed of their natural cultural development."

"It makes sense that the populations of those planets would have the right to pursue a complaint against her in some sort of interplanetary court system if they indeed conclude on reflection that they've been robbed."

"The closest thing there is in this quadrant to an interplanetary court system actually is the Federation. No other structures have buy-in from more than a couple of species."

"Our understanding was that the Federation was prepared to convict her regardless of how the affected parties felt about it."

"Well, she hasn't had a trial yet, but - one of the classic examples of a reason violations of the Prime Directive are bad is that it would be pretty easy to find a Stone Age civilization and convince them you were a god. They might like that fine. The affected planets being pleased isn't a defense."

"I see."

"And we can't ask undisturbed versions of the civilizations if they're pleased with their unaltered progress, prouder of their species..." He sighs.

"We'd have been delighted to have been contacted forty years sooner. We'd have lost some things but it's still a tradeoff any of us would make in a heartbeat, easiest question in the world..."

"I'm delighted that traveling the stars is so agreeable to Amenta," smiles Ambassador K'riohgann(v)or.

"If it turns out everyone we teach feels differently about it then at some point we'd certainly reconsider."

"Have you taught anyone yet?"

"Not yet, the crew accompanying T'Mir was observing."

"While other warp-capable civilizations in this quadrant don't have rules like the Prime Directive, in practice they seldom bother less advanced planets," says Ambassador K'riohgann(v)or.

"As long as the misery of springtime before colonization lingers in our memory there'll be overwhelming popular support for scientific exchange with anyone who seems unlikely to use it for violent conquest."

"And the planet's set up to respond to popular support."